New to photography....

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi all,

I'm not new to butterflies but am fairly new to this site and very new to ('semi-serious') photography. I've had a HP Photosmart E327 for about 3 years and having already made the decision that it was too limited for what I wanted, seeing some of the fantastic photos on the site sealed it, I had to get a DSLR.

I've managed to avoid (what seems like the eternal...) question of what to buy though. I was considering the Nikon D40 as an entry level camera when out the blue 2 weeks ago I was offered a second hand Canon EOS D10 along with a Canon 24-85mm lens, case and 4GB card all for £150.

After borrowing it for a weekend to try it out and seeing the results, that was it. There really is no comparison and I am never going back to a compact again, ever! Plus, when I was a kid my dad had a Canon 35mm camera which went with him everywhere he did so it's kind of fitting really. Either that or I'm turning into my dad...so I bought it.

Anyway, I started on fully auto, with auto focus and here are a few of my favourite shots from that first weekend:

Here are a couple of my previous favourite shots from the compact as a comparison:

I started reading the manual and some of the photography threads on here and have been mightily helped by the advice to others from Pete, Roger, Nick B, Gruditch and Eccles to name a few.

So now I need to learn all about f stops and shutter speeds etc and wanted to play around with some functions. I started with Roger's advice and went with AV mode, ISO 400, f8, manual focus, no beep, partial metering and AWB.

I've been playing around with exposure bracketing on Large Whites too. One question at this stage is, is Hi Speed shooting the same as the continous 9 frame burst the Canon will do?

Focus is a bit of an issue, with hand shake and the blessed wind but again, on here, having read about monopods I looked them up on Amazon and they are quite cheap so will invest in one of those.

Favourites from this weekend:

My back garden

Admittedly, more shoot and hope but I like the ghostly forms!

My favourite photo so far...

My next step is a macro lens and I'm thinking of Tamron (because of cost) up to 200mm. I'm hoping this may help with some nice close ups.

I'd welcome any comments, advice or criticism especially as some of the photos on this site are so good.

I can't wait to get out again with the Canon, it truly is a wonderful experience being out amongst these lovely creatures and to be able to take a relatively decent pictorial memento home with you.

Best regards

Lee

[eccles]

is Hi Speed shooting the same as the continous 9 frame burst the Canon will do?

Yes, I think so. It's probably not used very much with butterflies although it could be useful if you're trying to capture one in flight. It's used a lot in fast sports and birds in flight.

On monopods, give the Jessops 330 a look. It's only about £20 and three UKB members use it including myself. It's very light but quite solid, and the pan/tilt lever is just the right length to act as a shoulder brace.

I like the first mating pair of common blues, a very nice shot that!

[Gruditch]

It's probably not used very much with butterflies

Lisa & Myself, use it all the time.


Hi Lee, I used to own a 10D myself, compared to the latest models, they are a bit slow in turning on, and the frame rate is not too quick either. But otherwise a lovely old camera, and usually they are peanuts to pick up second hand.

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB2/v ... f=3&t=3348

Could be of interest to you, although it looks like we are going to have to move the venue.

Gruditch

[Zonda]

Hi Lee, i've been taking pics on slr's for years, but only recently have i started shooting butterflies. I've got an slr and a 105mm macro, but that aside the best accessory i have purchased for the butterflies recently, was a £16 monopod from Argos. Indispensable...

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi Eccles, Gruditch & Zonda,

Thanks all, especially the comment on the common blues. That was at Greenford Park Cemetery at about 6pm after I'd spent half an hour trying to get an male open wing shot with no luck...

I've requested a place at the photo workshop and look forward to meeting you all!

Eccles, I can't seem to find the 330 on the Jessops website?

Best,

Lee

[eccles]

It's probably not used very much with butterflies

Lisa & Myself, use it all the time.
Gruditch

OK, it's probably not used very much with butterflies if you're me, but it is if you are Gary or Lisa.

I found my Jessops monopod on ebay when an enterprising seller bought up liquidated stock from Jessops' shops that were being closed a while back and sold them with a decent markup but still a bargain price. Howver, I visited a shop in Bath earlier this summer and they had them in stock then. They may have discontinued them online but individual stores might still have them. I did a search on ebay and found a couple for sale there.

[Lee Hurrell]

Thanks Eccles, I'll try ebay.

I'm going to give high speed thing a go, I quite like the idea of a sequence in flight!

Cheers

Lee

[Gruditch]

I'm going to give high speed thing a go

It's useful in breezy conditions too. If you have a butterfly on a high grass steam, driving you nuts, blowing in and out of focus. A burst of 6.5 frames per second, gives you half a chance, of nailing at least one shot.

Gruditch

[Lee Hurrell]

Thank you all for your advice.

I can't wait to get back out at the weekend. I'm off to Cuckmere Haven (Seven Sisters Country Park) and Birling Gap...

Best,

Lee

[NickB]

Hi all,
......My next step is a macro lens and I'm thinking of Tamron (because of cost) up to 200mm. I'm hoping this may help with some nice close ups.
Lee

Hi Lee
I use the Tamron 90mm Macro (and now always with a KencoPro 3000 1.4xTeleconverter) and you will find that so far as image quality goes it is the equal of any (excepting perhaps a Nikkor 105mm which is razor-sharp but twice the price) lens out there. I find that I now have to watch my distance as it is possible to get too near with that set-up and compromise depth-of-field; though get it right and it does deliver those close-ups that you mention. I have not tried the Tamron 180mm Macro, though I suspect that it will be just as good. The 90mm is great for the smaller and easily approachable butterflies - I have a "cheap" Tamron 55-200mm Macro zoom that I used for flighty and large butterflies like Frits which has convinced me that I do need a bigger prime macro since a) it allows you to shoot from further away and b) frame the picture as you would any shot (rather than expecting to heavily crop as I do with my 90mm most of the time). But at c£700 for the Tamron 180mm and around £1000 for the (now discontinued) Nikkor 200mm, that may just have to wait .....the guys here generally go for the Sigma "Bugma" 150mm macro, but I like the images and feel of the Tamron and the Nikkor is just the db's...
Good luck
N
Be aware the balance of your bank account will ALWAYS go down once you start this game...

[eccles]

Macro focal length is always a bit of a conundrum. Do you go for short/medium focal length to enable you to get in close - useful where there's lots of grass in front of a small butterfly such as a skipper - or a longer one where you can keep back and avoid spooking the insect.

Probably the most popular on UKB is the Sigma 150mm EX F2.8 which offers a reasonable compromise, however it is expensive when compared to the 90/100/105 macro lenses. Pete, Gruditch, Denise and others use the 150mm very effectively.

Nick's solution is a good one since it partly addresses the shooting distance limitation of using a shorter focal length macro lens as adding a 1.4x converter effectively turns his 90mm macro into a 135mm one, and he can remove the teleconverter to shoot at 90mm focal length as well. Xmilehigh uses a similar set up with a Kenko 1.4x on his 100mm macro. Because nearly all 1:1 macro lenses have very high optical quality the resolution hit by adding a 1.4x TC is barely noticeable, even on quite high resolution DSLRs. Stopping down a bit will bring back any lost quality, and you have to do this anyway to get adequate depth of field.

I have a different solution. I have a 100mm macro, also a medium telephoto (70-210) that can focus quite close and to which I can attach an achromatic close up lens. I don't think anyone else on UKB currently uses such a combination but it suits me fine. The 100mm macro can poke into grass, shooting one-handed if necessary while holding the grass temporarily out of the way. The telephoto will shoot large butterflies such as the big fritillaries unaided, but drop the close-up lens onto it and it'll do down to large skipper size shooting from about a foot and a half away.

Going to 180mm or 200mm focal length with a dedicated 1:1 macro is very expensive, and the lenses are heavy, making them difficult to hold steady without a tripod. Using one will perhaps get you shots that shorter focal lengths can't manage because of the extra working distance, but sometimes there's such a thing as too big a working distance as there might be a greater chance of something getting in the way.

I suspect your best solution, and one which will probably be most recommended here, would be to go for the Sigma 150 unless your budget won't stretch that far.

Mike.

[Dave McCormick]

suspect your best solution, and one which will probably be most recommended here, would be to go for the Sigma 150 unless your budget won't stretch that far.

I have the Sigma 105mm and would have got the 150mm if I could have afforded that at the time, but to me the 105mm is fine, depends how far you want to be from your subject. Where I go the 150mm would not be useful because I could not get as close up to some species as I would like and would have to stand further back. If you have a longer lens like the 150mm, compared to the 105mm, sometimes you could have obsticles in the shot which could be avoided by getting closer to the subject.

I do understand that sometimes the long lens is better (I have found this recently that a longer lens would have been good in some situations and even though my Tamrom 18-200mm IF Macro is long enough sometimes, the quality is just not there compared to the Tamron 90mm or Sigma EX DG macro lenses)

I am not saying that the Prime Sigma EX DG macro lenses are better than other good/prime macro lenses as I don't know, but for quality and prive they are good, especially since when I got my Sigma 105mm Macro, I was a student on a limited budget and paid just under £300 for it at time Canon fit.

Anyway, if the quality is the same with the Sigma 105mm and 150 Macros, here are some of my better shots with the 105mm EX DG Macro to show you the quality.

First this one. If I had any longer lens, it would have been hard to get this shot because I was standing nearly over this when I took it:



Common Blue Female taken with Canon 400D
F-5
1/500sec
ISO-400
Metering: Pattern
No Flash
Handheld


Speckled Wood taken with Canon 400D
F-19
1/200sec
ISO-200
Exposure Bias: -2 Step
Metering: Pattern
Flash: Built in flash
Handheld


Common Blue male and Female taken with Canon 400D
F/5.6
1/500sec
Metering Mode: Pattern
No Flash
Monopod


Owl Butterfly taken with Canon 400D
f/4
1-60sec
ISO-200
Metering: Pattern
Flash, Built in
Handheld


Peacock Butterfly underside taken with Canon 500D
f/22
1-200sec
ISO-400
Exposure: -2 Step
Metering: Pattern
Flash, Built in
Handheld


Painted Lady Butterfly underside taken with Canon 500D
f/4.5
1-320sec
ISO-100
Metering: Partial
No Flash
Handheld


Moth feeding on Buddliea taken with Canon 500D
f/5.6
1-200sec
ISO-200
Metering: Spot
Flash, Built In
Handheld

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi all,

Again, thanks for your time and advice. I can see the lens purchase is going to take some thought (and budget consideration ). The Sigma 150 is over £500 on Amazon it seems, while Dave's photos with the 105 are pretty good too.

When I mentioned close ups earlier I was thinking of images like Dave's Speckled Wood, Painted Lady and Peacock underside shots, which all have really good detail. I've managed some good close ups with my Canon 85mm lens (see below) this week, which are much more what I had in mind after some cropping.

Nick, please excuse my naivety but I haven't come across teleconverters yet...I take it from Mike's comments they multiply the zoom? Also, is the 'bugma' lens you refer to the same as the lens Mike mentions?

With some patience I finally got that open wing shot:

Canon D10, 85mm, ISO400, F8, 1/500s, partial metering, -2/3 exposure, no flash, handheld.

Canon D10, 85mm, ISO400, F8, 1/500s, partial metering, -2/3 exposure, no flash, handheld.

NB - the Common Blues were taken with the high speed shooting 9 frame burst and choosing the best.

Not sure how he was still flying, but he was!

Canon D10, 56mm, ISO400, F8, 1/1250s, partial metering, -2/3 exposure, no flash, handheld.


Cheers

Lee

[NickB]

Hi all,......
Nick, please excuse my naivety but I haven't come across teleconverters yet...I take it from Mike's comments they multiply the zoom? Also, is the 'bugma' lens you refer to the same as the lens Mike mentions?
Lee

Hi Lee
You seem to have picked things up quickly
Yes -bugma is the Sigma 150mm f2.8 EX macro.

Teleconverters do exactly that, they sit between the lens and the camera body. The 1.4X I use multiplies the image 1.4 times. It means you loose 1/2 stop on the 90mm lens - f3.2 not f2.8; with a 2X I would loose another stop or two f3.5 -f4. Image quality does not really suffer - loss of a bit of contrast can be compensated for by under-stepping...
http://lens-reviews.com/Teleconverter-R ... -1.4x.html
link to teleconverter.


N

[JKT]

Actually you loose one stop for 1.4x and 2 stops for 2x converter. So 2.8 becomes 4.0 and 5.6 respectively.

[Zonda]

Actually you loose one stop for 1.4x and 2 stops for 2x converter. So 2.8 becomes 4.0 and 5.6 respectively.

And stops are precious, that's why i never use one.

[NickB]

Actually you loose one stop for 1.4x and 2 stops for 2x converter. So 2.8 becomes 4.0 and 5.6 respectively.

Indeed - popular wisdom says that. I have found with the Kenco Pro 300 1.4 TC on my Tamron f2.8, the widest I can get down to is f3.2....though I would have expected f3.5.
However, in good light any loss is compensated by the quality of the optics and the magnification it gives. Where it does get trickier is the darkly overcast day with variable light. I have not yet gone-down the ring-flash solution for such occasions or for really-close-up work with either a TC or extension tube. Using higher ISO on good DSLRs which have high-ISO noise reduction software on-board and active-D lighting like Nikon, it is possible to use a TC in poor light conditions too, where shooting around f8 for sharpness would otherwise be a challenge. Shooting in RAW and post-processing for noise in Camera RAW or similar package can also compensate for high ISO shooting. I always start with shooting at ISO 200 - but if I can't get the right results I will go up to ISO 400.
N
That's right Zonda - stop at nothing...
(...WC Fields on water:
"Water! Why would I drink water? Fish **** in it!" 'nuff said!)

[Lee Hurrell]

Thanks all once more for your advice and Nick for your kind comment. I've yet to fully play around with f stops yet, but will of course report back with findings...

On the thread about digital manipulation there are comments about moving stems out of the way, something I've already come across and had to do.

However, my friend Michael was kind enough to be assistant (his camera battery had run out so he had no choice really ) when we were lucky enough to come across some Silver Spotted Skippers yesterday.

The first shot is my cropped image.

The second is how I managed it. Michael carefully turned the stem the butterfly was on round so that it was fully in the sun!

[Zonda]

If that was my hand, the skipper would be half way to France by now.

[eccles]

Nice one, Lee. However, if this is a crop, I suggest it might be more pleasing if you amended it to leave a bit more space in front of the butterfly's eyes so that it's looking into the picture rather than out of it.
Keep it up, and you're right to get to grips with f-stops, i.e. aperture settings, as they are very important with close up subjects. They control not only how much light gets to your sensor but also how wide or narrow your depth of focus can be. A small aperture (high f-stop number) gives a wider depth of focus than a narrow one (low f-stop).